Lamantez
Desha Robinson ("the Defendant") was convicted by a
Davidson County jury of attempted second degree murder and
sentenced to twelve years' incarceration. In this direct
appeal, the Defendant contends that the trial court erred in
admitting into evidence a Facebook photograph of the
Defendant posing with two handguns and that the evidence
submitted at trial was insufficient to support his
conviction. Discerning no error, we affirm the judgment of
the trial court.

Robert
L. Holloway, Jr., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in
which John Everett Williams and Robert H. Montgomery, Jr.,
JJ., joined.

OPINION

ROBERT
L. HOLLOWAY, JR., JUDGE.

I.
Factual and Procedural Background

Pretrial
Motion Hearing

Prior
to trial, the Defendant filed a Motion to Exclude Photograph,
arguing that a photograph of the Defendant holding two
handguns, which the State intended to admit at trial, was
irrelevant, that it could not be authenticated, and that the
prejudicial effect far outweighed its probative value. He
further argued that the photograph was propensity evidence
meant to demonstrate that the Defendant was "a violent
person" with the "propensity to commit these kinds
of offenses." The State argued that the evidence was not
offered as propensity evidence but to establish the
Defendant's identity as the shooter.

At a
hearing on the motion, the trial court heard evidence that
the photograph was taken from the Defendant's Facebook
page at www.facebook.com/Lamantez.Robinson. The
State established that the photograph of the Defendant was
posted to his Facebook page two and a half months before the
offense in this case was committed; however, the State could
not establish the date on which the photograph was taken or
who posted the photograph to Facebook. The trial court took
the motion under advisement and later entered a thorough
written order denying the Motion to Exclude Photograph.

In its
order denying the Motion to Exclude Photograph, the trial
court found:

This cause came to be heard on May 20, 2016, on the
Defendant's motion to exclude a photograph of the
Defendant that the State pulled from his Facebook page. The
Defendant is charged in this case with attempted second
degree murder. The date of the alleged offense was August 30,
2013. The Defendant was subsequently arrested at a house on
September 27, 2013. At the house where the Defendant was
arrested, law enforcement officers found three pistols
outside in a grill, including a Glock pistol that was later
confirmed to be the pistol used in the alleged offense
through ballistics testing. Prior to this trial, the State
discovered that . . . a photograph was posted to the
Defendant's Facebook page on June 13, 2013. The
photograph shows an individual who appears to be the
Defendant holding a pistol in each hand. Based on the
State's motion, the Court is given to understand that
Special Agent Kevin Warner, who conducted the ballistics
test, would testify at trial that the pistol in the
Defendant's right hand was "consistent with a
Glock." The State seeks to use the photograph to show
that the gun found in the grill at the house where the
Defendant was arrested was actually the Defendant's gun.
The Defendant argued that the photograph should be excluded
on three grounds:

With
respect to relevance, the trial court found that "if the
photograph [was] of the Defendant and [was] of a real gun,
the evidence [was] relevant, regardless of when it was
taken." The court stated, "The Defendant being in a
possession of a firearm that looks like the firearm he was
found with tends to make it more likely that that was
actually his firearm, and thus, that he was involved in the
incident." Accordingly, the trial court determined that
the photograph was relevant.

As to
authentication, the trial court reasoned:

[I]n order for the photograph in question to be properly
authenticated, the Court must be satisfied that there is
sufficient evidence to support a finding by the trier of fact
that the matter in question is what the State claims.

In light of this, the pertinent question is what the State
claims the photograph to be. It is the Court's
understanding that the State is claiming that the photograph
is the Defendant holding a pistol similar to the Glock which
was found in the grill at the home where the Defendant was
arrested. The evidence the Court believes the State would
offer in support of this contention is Detective [Jeremy]
Smith's testimony that the individual in the photograph
appears to be the Defendant and [] Agent Warner's
testimony that the pistol in the individual's "right
hand is consistent with a Glock." While the Court is not
certain that this actually is what the photograph is, the
Court does believe that this evidence is ...

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